Process of manufacturing multicolored patterns of vulcanized rubber



. UNITED STATES- PATENT- OEEICE.

JOHN MURPHY, OF BROOKLYN, NEW YORK.

PROCESS OF MANUFACTURING MULTICOLQRED PATTERNS 0F VULCANIZED RUBBER.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 543,583, dated July 30, 1895..

Application tiled May 8, 1895. Serial No. 548,501. (Specimens.)

To otZZ whom it may concern: l Y

Be it known that I, JOHN MURPHY, a resident of Brooklyn, Kings county, State of New York, have invented vcertain new and'useful Improvements in the Process o fA Manufacturing Mult-icolored Patterns of Vulcanized Rubber, of which the followingis a specification.

My invention relates to. the productiouof multicolored patterns or tiles of vulcanized india-rubber; and it consists in the process and article of manufacture hereinafter set forth and claimed.

Multicolored tiles of india rubber have heretofore been made in the following manner: The rubber for each specified color was first produced in the form of a sheet; thus a blue sheet and a green sheet and a'red sheet of unvulcanized india -rubber were made. Unvulcanized sheets or raw sheets in the various colors having been produced, there were cut from each sheet the'pieces of the desired forms, such as lozenge form or Whatever may be made. The raw pieces cut from these sheets were then adjusted in conjunction with one another to produce the desired tile, which necessarily, owing to this mode of format-ion, could only be a very small tile of about three, or a few more than three, specific pieces. When these raw pieces had been laid side by side they were vulcanized conjointly-that is to say, the entire small tile was vulcanized. Now the effect is, and it has been found so in the preparation of such goods, that in the act of vulcanizing the eXactness of outline was lost, the soft rubber during the first stages of vulcanizing flowing from one piece to the other, and thus the colors which were intended to produce the specific outlines would flow over, rendering the lines irregular and blending to an extent the design instead of making it as sharp as required. The present invention avoids all these diculties and enables me to produce tiles of much larger size than heretofore, tiles which will be as large as twelve or more inches in either direction.

My invention will be understood by reference to the accompanying drawings, in which-e- Figure l is a representation of the old form of tile. Fig. 2 represents my new tile in pro- Fig. 3 represents a comcess of formation. pleted tile.

Referring particularly to Fig. l, it will be seen that this figure represents a hexagonal tile consisting of three lozenge-shaped tiles a, b, and c of different colors. This tile is made in the old way-that is to say, the lozenges are cut out from sheets of unvulcanized rubber and placed side by side in a mold and thereupon vulcanized. By this process, however, portions of the various sections a, h, and c fuse or flow over onto the adjacent section and thus the lines of demarcation 1.2 3 between the sections are irregular, producinga tile of irregular unsymmetrical appearance. Now by my invention I take a number of sections d, e, and'f of different colors from partially-vulcanized sheets of rubber--that is to say, the rubber is brought to the proper vulcanizing temperature and the vulcanization arrested after a short period, so that the sheets are only partially vulcanized. These sections d e f are laid side by side and films or strips g of unvulcanized rubber are laid in the joints, as shown. The whole tile is thereupon put in a mold and completely vulcanized, the strips g assisting in preventing the spread or iiowing of the colored sections one to another. There is thus produced a tile, as shown in Fig. 8, in which the lines'of demarcation 4 5 6 between the tile -sections are sharply marked.v These strips or films g may be uncolored or of a neutral color. I may also cut the sections from raw rubber and partially vulcanize them before placing them together, if such a step is deemed advisable.

What I claim, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

1. In the art of making multi-colored tiles of india rubber, the process which consists in first semi-vulcanizing the sheets of various colors, in then cutting out small pieces of these semi-vulcanized sheets, in then laying .TOI-IN MRPHY. 'Witnessesz W. A. CoLLrNs, F. J. Monats.

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